The Shakespearean Performance Research Group of the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) provides an ongoing home for the study of Shakespearean performance within ASTR.

In the spirit of the open-themed Dallas ASTR conference, this year's Shakespearean Performance Research Group (SPRG) seeks to maintain a focus limited only by Shakespearean performance. For the 2013 meeting, the SPRG invites papers that broadly interrogate what is meant by Shakespearean performance. For example, this questioning might involve the interplay between early and late modern performance in some dimension, the cultural work that Shakespearean drama and performance continue to do, the ways in which relationships between the "literary" and the "performative" have been construed over more than 400 years of performance, the theories and legacies of Shakespearean performance across performance media, how Shakespeare performance constructs and is constructed by specific communities. Papers accepted to previous sessions have tended to address questions of practical theatre, specific issues in history and historiography, and theoretical concerns, but we are looking for a wide range of engagements with Shakespeare and performance.

Selected papers will be assigned to subgroups by the group's conveners, Catherine Burriss, Franklin J. Hildy, Robert Ormsby, Don Weingust and W. B. Worthen, and the conveners will organize on-line communication of subgroup members before the conference. At the conference session, papers will be discussed first within subgroups, after which the subgroups will come together to exchange ideas.

This past year, the Shakespearean Performance Research Group began a relationship with The Journal of the Wooden O, which is publishing select papers from the 2012 Research Group gathering in Nashville. Select contributions to the 2013 Dallas Research Group meeting will be considered for publication in the following summer's edition.

Please submit a 200-word abstract and 50-word academic biographical statement, including current affiliations, if any, by Monday, June 3 2013, to astr.sprg@gmail.com. Proposals also can be mailed to Don Weingust, Center for Shakespeare Studies, Southern Utah University / Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 University Boulevard, South Hall 101A, Cedar City, UT 84720).